


Infidel

by canidia



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, F/M, this is literally just a depressing character study at this point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2019-11-26 12:50:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18180809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canidia/pseuds/canidia
Summary: It’s a farce, she thinks. The most ridiculous, spectacular farce since this cacophony of idiocy began – indefinite engagement, terminal want, promise without relief.Who could ever agree to that?





	1. Chapter 1

“So,” asks Hilda, “What do you think?”

Zelda laughs hollowly. Then she re-inhales some smoke from her cigarette and coughs not quite so hollowly. Despite the choking she makes no move to roll down the window, and only after a loud sigh does Hilda roll down the driver’s side. The fumes sweep past them and out into the autumn air.

Zelda waits for her lungs to behave before taking another drag.

“Well,” she says, “What _I_ think doesn’t seem to matter much, so I don’t know why you even bother asking.”

Hilda puffs out her cheeks and exhales heavily.

“Just trying to make conversation, Zelds.”

She does a quick mirror-signal-manoeuvre and slips them somewhat bumpily off the high way.

“Yes,” says Zelda, exhaling through her nose. “ _Well._ ”

She lets that linger for a while, just to add to the drama.  

“What I _think_ , Hilda, is that Edward has utterly obliterated his chances at High Priesthood. I mean it’s disgraceful behaviour, utterly disgraceful. They probably won’t even give him a bishopric now. You know he was up for one, somewhere North, I forget where.”

She waves her cigarette as if the smoke can be blamed for forgetting.

“Anyway,” she continues, “I suppose we can wave all that goodbye now. And for someone like _her_ of all people. I could understand, perhaps, if it was… Someone of calibre, _maybe_ then I could understand. Well, no, let’s not lie to ourselves, but at the very least I could see that he was trying to bring someone of substance into the fold, instead of… _Diane._ ”

“Diana,” corrects Hilda.

Zelda gives a disapproving grunt, before taking one final drag and stubbing the cigarette out on Hilda’s dashboard. Hilda doesn’t say anything at that, but when Zelda begins rolling the window down Hilda stops her with an ‘Oi!’ so sharp she takes genuine offence.

“No,” continues Hilda, condescendingly, “There’s a jam jar for fag ends in the glove compartment. You may be angry but you’re not littering on my watch, thank you very much.”

Zelda takes a haughty breath then does as she’s told, because she’s spent the last four years complaining about litter in Greendale, and if she added to the problem Hilda would never let her forget it.

“Diana,” hums Hilda. “Diana, Diana.” Zelda unscrews the stinking jam jar and drops the cigarette butt inside with disgust. “Diana, Diana, Di – “

Zelda slams the glove compartment so loudly Hilda jumps. Then she sighs and glances over at Zelda with weary annoyance.

“ _Alright_.”

She doesn’t expressly tell her big sister to calm down, because to do so now would be nothing short of a death sentence, but her tone conveys the sentiment nonetheless. Zelda doesn’t even notice, for she’s already reaching into the purse on her lap. She fumbles with the cigarette case and then fumbles some more when she can’t find the lighter. She can practically feel Hilda rolling her eyes.

“And Satan knows what’s going to happen when they break up,” says Zelda. The lighter’s refusing to cooperate and she glares at it angrily before trying again. “We’ll be exposed to the whole world, and we all know how well that went last time. No, this whole thing is… Utterly absurd.”

After the seventh try the flame finally takes. Zelda inhales and holds it a while before pushing the smoke out through her nose.

The car slows off the splintering tarmac and onto a road that is nothing but earth and gravel.

“We don’t _know_ they’re going to break up,” says Hilda. “After all, they have been together for – “

“And mother was with father for 52 years. What’s time got to do with anything?”

Hilda shrugs.

“I just meant – “

“I won’t even entertain the notion,” says Zelda. “You wait, this’ll be finished before the year is out. Five, at most. It’s just a… A phase.”

She’s gesturing with her hands again, tracing smoke signals in the car’s now decidedly muggy microclimate.

“He’s nearly 200 Zelds.”

“Well,” repeats Zelda, “There you are then. A mid-life crisis. Nothing more.”

Hilda brings the car to a stop a few feet from the front garden and rolls up the window.

“But he _has_ got clearance,” she says, wrestling with her seat belt. “It’s not like he’s sneaking around with a mortal behind the Dark Lord’s back.”

She pulls the key out the ignition. Zelda purses her lips.

“Yes,” she says. “ _Well.”_

Hilda steps out the car and carefully shuts the door – approximately two seconds later the vehicle is rocking back and forth with the force of Zelda’s slam. She doesn’t wait for Hilda’s response and instead begins striding towards the mortuary, without looking over her shoulder. Yet, when she reaches the porch steps and Hilda’s still not alongside her, she turns and waits for her little sister despite herself. Hilda is standing very still, only a few feet from the car.

“What?” demands Zelda.

Hilda looks at her warily and whispers, “What are we going to tell Ambrose?” 

“Oh, for Satan’s sake, he can’t hear you. He’s probably not even up yet.”

Hilda makes a helpless shrugging gesture.

“Besides,” continues Zelda, “I don’t see any reason to get him involved.”

“He _is_ Edward’s nephew,” says Hilda, emphatically.   

“There’s no reason for him to be involved,” repeats Zelda. “He is in exile and under house arrest.” Her voice drops slightly and she glares at Hilda. “Do I make myself clear?”

She watches as Hilda mulls this over.

“Fine,” Hilda says, shaking her head dismissively and trudging over to Zelda. “Fine. But when this comes to a head, do not expect me to soften the blow.”

They’re walking up the porch steps.

“You mean _if_ ,” says Zelda, “ _If_ this comes to a head.”

“Yeah,” says Hilda, “Sure. _If._ ”

Zelda turns and narrows her eyes, but Hilda’s already pushed past her and opened the door. She disappears into the house, leaving Zelda alone on the porch. It’s not quite raining, but not quite dry –moisture lingers stubbornly in the air, clinging to Zelda’s clothes and refusing to fall. She doesn’t notice. Instead, she stays put, gnawing on the stub of her cigarette.

She does not like this.

She does not like it one bit.

\---

It’s a test, thinks Zelda, a test for all involved. Except Edward, of course, who’s he’s currently swanning about like he owns the place while everyone pretends not to notice. Least of all High Priest Haversham, who goes over the proceedings as if Diana’s not even there.

The main event is the same as always.

Zelda curls her lips with only mild disdain as she steps over the mortal remains of Angelique Dupuis, whose gnawed limbs are lying where they were dropped. She barely touched the Queen this year, but what she lacked in blood she’s made up for in wine. By the time she saunters over to her siblings, Zelda’s on her fifth glass.

The congregation is still largely intact, and Haversham is swirling between various parties, asking everyone if they ‘enjoyed’ themselves. Hilda and Edward are deep in fervent conversation, but grow quiet when she joins them. Zelda sips her drink expectantly and waits for someone else to break the silence. Edward bites the bullet.

“And how did you find the feast, sister?”

“Oh,” she drawls, “Same old, same old. And you, brother?”

To Zelda’s disappointment, Edward only nods. She wishes she had a cigarette, but the building’s made of wood and the Church of Night is still tetchy when it comes to witches, kindling, and open flame. She takes a short sip of her drink.

“I must say,” she continues, “I’m surprised you didn’t participate this year.”

“’Course he did,” says Hilda, and although she’s not actually interrupting, it feels like she is. “He was right up there with Haversham, weren’t you Edward?”

“Don’t be droll, Hilda. You know that’s not what I meant.”

Hilda huffs a little but doesn’t speak again.

“I’m under no obligation to take part in the physical aspect of the ceremony,” says Edward, levelly. “Besides, since the excommunication of Vogel, I’ve performed the Feast twice this year already. I’m sure you can understand there’s no value in overindulgence.”

Zelda sneers slightly. She can feel Hilda’s magic trying to defuse the situation and it’s only making her angrier. 

“And I suppose Diana’s presence was a necessity, was it?”

Hilda winces.

“We felt it was right to initiate Diana into our ways,” replies Edward, still monosyllabic.

“Really? And who is ‘ _we_ ’?”

“Myself and The Council, in communication with the Dark Lord.”

“Oh, _please_. Honestly Edward, you can’t expect me to believe – “

“ _Zelda_ ,” hisses Hilda, so loud it’s almost comical. “Inside voice.”

Zelda sniffs and glances round the room. Haversham is glaring at her and the rest of the congregation is trying not to look. She takes an angry breath and then turns back to her brother.

“Edward,” she whispers, “You know, that of all people, I would never betray the Dark Lord. But… A mortal? Can that truly be his plan?”

“’No mind can imagine what the Dark Lord has prepared for those who love him,’” quotes Edward.

Zelda waits but he says nothing more. If she were at home, she would push the point; but she’s not, and right now there are at least twenty pairs of eyes trained on the back of her head. So, in lieu of a genuine response, she sighs loudly and drains her glass. The room relaxes behind her. Hilda practically wilts with relief.

“Well, I think she handled it marvellously,” she says. “We all do - Haversham was just telling me how impressed he was. But don’t you think you should’ve… You know, eased her into it a bit more? After all,” she chortles, “The Feast is a pretty dramatic one to start her on.”

Edward smiles. It’s not broad or beaming, but it _is_ genuine – genuine and filled with pride. Zelda hasn’t seen Edward smile like that since they were in their twenties, and that was a very, very, long time ago.

“Oh,” he says, still smiling, “I wouldn’t worry about Diana. She’s tougher than she looks.”

And then in that one revolting moment Zelda realises her brother is in love with a mortal. Not lust. Love.

There’s movement behind her and she glances over her shoulder.

“Speak of an angel,” mutters Hilda.

The congregation is very accommodating when Diana pushes through them. Some, the older generation or those with more traditionalist tendencies, turn up their noses and eye her with suspicion. But the younger ones smile with great approval. Even Haversham gives her a short nod and moves out the way. Zelda does not wait for her to reach them.

“I need some air,” she says, before marching out the building and closing the door behind her.

Once outside she foists her skirt up to pull the cigarette case out her stockings, and then, because she was so worked up earlier that she forgot to bring a lighter, she has to use the magic trick Edward taught her when she was nine. She mutters under her breath, and, after a couple of tries, the top of her index finger is burning with a white, painless flame. She lights the cigarette and shakes her hand; the flame goes out, her skin is unharmed. She takes a long, slow drag.

The forest is so thick here you can barely see the stars, but Zelda looks up anyway.

They used to be so close, her and Edward. But now… Now what? Now, Hilda – who by all accounts had nothing to do with their brother until the last century – is Edward’s confidant in her stead. She doesn’t deserve that, Zelda thinks, _I’m_ the one he should trust. She yearns for a world where Edward had never been ordained, where the tides of trust had remained static. True, he’d been thinking about it for decades, kept only in check by their blasphemous father. But to leap into priesthood just years after the old man passed…

There’s a rustling a few feet to her left and her thoughts scatter.

Diana Sawyer steps out of the darkness moments later, and Zelda’s head flops forward in exasperation.

“I know you don’t like me,” says Diana, palms raised in a mock-surrender.

The witch straightens her back and watches Diana’s approach with frosty disdain.

“Then what do you want?”

“I don’t want to be your enemy.”

Zelda snorts and looks back up at the sky, but the mortal keeps talking.

“I really don’t. Edward has told me so much about you, and I know you feel that I’ve stolen him from you, but, I promise, I really didn’t mean to.”

Zelda narrows her eyes, straining to see a single star.

“What, exactly, did he tell you?”

Diana shrugs.

“Your skill. Your determination and wit. He has great respect for you, you know.”

“Good,” says Zelda curtly, “He should.”

She takes another drag.

“I am not your enemy,” repeats Diana, “Please try to believe that.”

Zelda looks her wearily and exhales.

“Why did you come to the Feast?”

“I was invited. Edward asked the Council before telling me anything about the Church at all. He’s not betraying you, Zelda. He’s not betraying anyone.”

“According to you.”

“According to your God.”

Zelda advances so fast Diana almost falls over. She stumbles between the tangled roots of an oak tree and her back lands on its trunk. She recovers quickly, but Zelda has the height advantage. One palm slams the bark next to Diana’s face when the witch leans in close. Zelda’s other hand is still holding the cigarette, dropping ash onto Diana’s shoulder, but the mortal’s wearing a thick, synthetic coat and doesn’t even feel it. Pity, thinks Zelda. 

“And what would _you_ know of our God?”

“Edward and I communed with the Council,” says Diana, staring Zelda dead in the eyes. Her tone is cautious, but her face betrays no fear. “The Dark Lord spoke to them. In person.”

“You’re lying.”

“No, I’m not.”

Zelda grits her teeth but can’t find a reply.

“He’s up for a Bishopric,” Diana continues, “In Montana. I’m sure you already know. My participation in the Feast was a stipulation.” She glances at the cigarette, so close to her cheek. “Don’t ruin it for him.”

There’s a long, weighty pause.

Eventually, Zelda takes a heavy breath, and stubs the cigarette out on the tree trunk. She walks back a few paces and Diana wriggles out from under her grasp.

“I know this is difficult for you,” says the mortal, picking her way over the roots. “But please don’t make it any harder than it needs to be. We only want to be happy.”

Zelda watches as Diana traipses back inside.

‘Tougher than she looks’ indeed. 


	2. Chapter 2

Edward gets the bishopric.

Diana hosts a leaving party at his lodgings the night before their flight. At least, it’s supposed to be a leaving party, but somehow Hilda gets involved and the whole thing suddenly feels like a house warming. There’s a roaring fire and mountains of cakes and although Hilda’s knowledge of drinks is limited to brandy and stout Diana has more than made up for it, bringing enough wine to discolour the ocean. Edward spends the evening insisting all he did was choose the decorations.

Zelda knows this is a lie, knows in actuality he did nothing at all, but she feels resentful all the same, because now it looks like she was the only person who didn’t help. She received an invitation, like the rest of the congregation, but no one bothered to ask if she wanted to be involved. It was probably Diana who asked Hilda – since the Feast they’ve been getting on like a house on fire, much to Zelda’s chagrin. Not that she’s surprised. After all, she reasons, idiocy loves company.

The blonde duo keeps swirling in and out of the kitchen, passing around plates of hot food, and although Zelda’s doing her best, making polite small talk and drinking only a respectable amount, the scene is vexatious. Edward’s swamped, of course, and members of the congregation crowd around him like flies on shit. Zelda hasn’t even spoken to her brother yet, and he’s the only reason she’s here. Not that she had any hope of an early exit anyway – her and Hilda drove here together, sharing the car yet again.

At least she’s able to smoke, she thinks dispassionately. At least Damien Bates is flirting with her, at least Drusilla Hale isn’t making snide comments, at least Hilda is staying out of her hair.

But, despite all the at leasts, after two hours it’s still too much.

She steps quietly out the back door and sits on a bench in the garden, cradling her cup in one hand. She actually remembered the lighter this time round, and smokes with disregard for the ash dropping onto an unkempt patch of violets. Embers float down and singe the petals.

Zelda’s getting her head around it now. The fact Hilda has taken to Diana so readily is unfair, she thinks, but to her credit Diana seems committed enough. Not even engaged and she’s already thrown away her mortal life to favour Edward’s career. Even while Zelda was wallowing, Diana was expertly cosying up to the congregation, plying her traditionalist enemies with food and alcohol. A tactic she stole from Hilda, no doubt, but a tactic that works nevertheless.

“I thought I’d find you out here.”

Zelda sighs, but she’s too tired to move away.

“And what do you intend to do, now you’ve found me?”

“I want to thank you for coming,” says Diana, sitting down on the bench. “And to let you know you’re under no obligation to stay.”

Zelda snorts.

“Divine benediction from Lilith herself.” She drains the glass. “There’s only one car and Hilda wouldn’t let me drive back alone if I tried. I’m not staying out of the goodness of my heart, believe me.”

Diana blinks back slowly, ignores the sarcasm.

“You’re very close with Hilda, aren’t you?”

“What of it?”

“Nothing,” says Diana, “But it must be nice to have siblings you can trust so readily.”

Zelda has no poker face – the anger flashes obtusely over her features.

“If you mean to insinuate that Edward no longer trusts me then – “

“No, nothing like that.”

“Well then what? Are you hoping to convince me I should trust Hilda’s judgement?”

“No, I – ”

“Perhaps you’re trying to collect the set?” continues Zelda, carried away on the wings of her own indignation, “Two Spellmans down, one to go? Is that it? You’ve come to charm the serpent in the orchard?”

“ _No_ ,” Diana repeats, so forcefully Zelda has no choice but to listen, “I’m glad Edward has people he can rely on when things go wrong. _That_ is what I wanted to say.”

Zelda collects herself a little, takes a drag on the cigarette.

“Why?” she asks haughtily, “Are you planning to make them go wrong?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Diana sighs heavily, shaking her head in exasperation. Then, she has a sudden flash of inspiration, and adds: “Is that why ­you don’t like me? You’re afraid I’m going to do something?”

“Afraid? Is that what you think? I’m _afraid_?” Zelda sneers. “You’re a bug, Diana. Any one of us could kill you without so much as blinking. No, I am not ‘afraid.’”

“Then why do you insist on hating me?”

Zelda looks away at that. She takes a drag down almost to the filter then stubs the rest of the cigarette out on the bench.

“I don’t hate you. But this,” she gestures towards the house, “Is so unbelievably stupid. I don’t care what The Council say – to let you into our world is a mistake. Mortals aren’t built for this life. I mean, can you even comprehend Edward’s age? He’s been alive for twenty decades, Diana. Being with you is like… Well, it’s like something repulsive, that’s what.”

(This is a lie. Once physical maturity hits there’s a general consensus among witches that, consent and sane mind willing, ‘relations’ are perfectly acceptable. But Diana doesn’t need to know that.)

“Hilda may buy into this lunacy,” she continues, “But I most certainly do _not_.”

For a short time, Diana does not react. She sighs loudly once more and turns to look at the stars. She stays there a moment, necked arched. Then she turns and looks at Zelda.

“Zelda?” she asks, voice suddenly serious, “Zelda, look at me.”

Zelda lethargically glances in her direction. There’s a staunch determination on Diana’s face and it’s compelling beyond all reason.

“What?”

She’s very beautiful, thinks Zelda. Endearing, like a kitten learning to be a cat.

“Edward has made his choice,” says Diana, “And I have made mine. The Church of Night supports us, as do your friends. I will not let you bully me out of loving him.”

Zelda laughs. Satan, she thinks, the impertinence of it all. The misplaced self-assurance. Only a mortal would say something so obnoxious.

“Oh, Diana,” she snickers, “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Diana doesn’t reply, and instead shifts her gaze to the dewy grass. She’s frowning, and a sharp angry line cuts down her forehead. Despite the unflattering expression, her profile in the moonlight is astonishingly handsome. She’s not delicate, not pretty or petite as Zelda had hitherto inferred, but noble and princely, with high cheekbones and a strong chin. The mortal grits her jaw and her expression hardens, and Zelda suddenly realises she’s misjudged Diana entirely.

She isn’t a kitten at all – she’s a lioness, with teeth.

There’s a crash from inside and a distinctly British voice yells in high dudgeon. Diana glances up at the noise, plucked out of whatever maze she had wandered into.

“You had better see to your guests,” says Zelda, with only a hint of disdain.

Diana stands up.

“Thank you for coming,” she says, shortly, “And thank you for being honest with me.”

“Don’t mention it,” drawls Zelda. “Really, don’t.”

She waits to see if Diana will take offence, but Diana merely smirks.

There, thinks Zelda, there are the teeth.

\---

Edward’s back in Greendale less than six months later.

He’s being promoted at an unprecedented rate.

There’s another party and this time the sisters play host. Hilda broaches the subject tentatively over dinner, a few days after Edward’s return has been announced. She has a pretty speech prepared too, with orders from Haversham and a long list of reasons why, but Zelda acquiesces without any fuss at all. Although, of course, there are conditions: Hilda is to be responsible for Ambrose and his behaviour, as well as the food, the decorations, and the cleaning. Zelda is responsible for the drink and the invitations. Hilda accepts the terms in full.

Their brother is late to his own reception. Zelda doesn’t mind much – neither does Hilda from the looks of things. When Edward finally appears, Hilda’s so overjoyed to have him back that Zelda is almost jealous. There’s the usual round of congratulations, the machoistic slaps on the back from the warlocks, the fawning and prancing from the younger witches. Zelda keeps herself busy, topping up glasses, filling the air with idle prattle, snapping at Hilda to get more wine. She’s so swept up she almost forgets that Diana is supposed to be there at all.

Edward catches her by the elbow when she’s in the kitchen, preparing drinks for Haversham and his cronies.

“You haven’t seen Diana, have you?”

Zelda snorts.

“Should I have?”

“Only I think she’s tired from the flight,” continues Edward, ignoring the sarcasm. “I would go and find her but…”

But you’re enjoying the attention, thinks Zelda.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “She’s only mortal, she can’t have gone far.”

She leaves the drinks in the kitchen and drifts away from the gathering. She checks the basement first – the embalming rooms have been left unlocked and even Zelda doesn’t begrudge Diana _that_ morbid curiosity. If anything, it would bolster Zelda’s opinion of her, but no, the mortal has not prodded a single corpse. She checks outside next, remembers Diana’s penchant for meetings under the night sky, and performs a full lap round the mortuary before giving up.

Then, frustrated, she tries upstairs. The second floor is a dud, and although she pokes her head in every bedroom, she finds nothing at all. But when she begins the climb to the attic – the three flights that lead to Ambrose’s room and nowhere else – she has more success. For there is Diana sitting at the top of the stairs, her back on Ambrose’s bedroom door, her knees drawn to her chest.

“Don’t you know it’s rude to snoop around other people’s houses?” says Zelda, as she begins the third and final flight. “Edward’s looking for you. He sent me to – “

She stops. Diana’s been crying.

“Oh, for Satan’s sake.”

“Sorry,” sniffs Diana, sounding for all the world as annoyed as her host. 

She stands up, straining slightly. Then she inhales, swallows, and tilts her head proudly.

“You said Edward was looking for me?”

“Yes,” replies Zelda, dragging the syllable.

She waits for Diana to respond, but Diana only clears her throat. With Zelda one step below, their eyes are completely level. Zelda can see the little tracks where tears have rolled down Diana’s cheeks. Even after crying, the mortal’s unnervingly attractive.

“And?” sniffs Diana.

Zelda twangs back to reality.

“And what?”

“What did he want?”

“I don’t know.”

Diana stares at her blankly. Zelda’s angry again, but nosy too.

“Why were you crying? Are you not happy for him?”

Diana smirks, shakes her head and then continues smirking as she speaks.

“This has nothing to do with Edward’s rank.”

“Then what?”

“He proposed to me on the plane.”

Zelda tightens her grip on the bannister.

“I’m very grateful,” Diana continues, “And I love him dearly. I accepted the moment he uttered the words.”

She doesn’t say anything else and Zelda is left hanging on baited breath. The mortal’s no longer smirking, but her expression is reading nothing else either – she may as well be wearing a mask. She’ll make a good liar, thinks Zelda. Perhaps that’s why Edward chose her.

The initial shock begins to settle.

“Does Hilda know?”

“No.

“Haversham?”

“No one. We’re keeping it a secret until after Edward earns his robes. He wants to announce it after the ceremony.”

Zelda swallows – if the subject weren’t so serious, she’d laugh at such typically Edward behaviour.

“You’ve truly told no one at all?”

“Only you.”

There’s a beat.

The vulnerability of ‘only you’ feels utterly wanton and the unassailable surety that Diana’s wearing so brazenly is taunting Zelda beyond all measure. If this were any other woman, she would already be flexing her fingers, assessing her mark, judging the precise moment to strike out. Zelda has lain with many a mortal, but never one this bold. Never one who knew who she truly was. She longs to sink the hooked talons of lust into such enticing skin.

But then, she remembers, this is not her kill.

“Why were you crying?”

“Why do you want to know?”

Zelda’s fingers curl into the handrail.

“It’s nothing he’s done,” says Diana, quickly. “He’s a perfect gentleman.”

“Then what?”

Diana smiles sadly.

“I don’t expect you to understand,” she says. “I doubt you ever will.”

Zelda storms downstairs before the mortal has the chance to push past her.

She regrets it, in the end, because she has to wait until next week’s service to learn they haven’t even fixed a date. Everyone stands around, congratulating them, bowing and fawning. Hilda stoops lower than most, especially where Diana’s concerned, but Zelda’s too preoccupied with her own annoyance to admonish her. It’s a farce, she thinks, the most ridiculous, spectacular farce since this cacophony of idiocy began – indefinite engagement, terminal want, promise without relief.

Who could ever agree to that?

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another disclaimer - I talk about chess in this game. I know nothing about chess. Good luck xoxo

Edward goes on tour a few days after the ceremony.

The voyage is tradition and no one is surprised, but it leaves Diana hanging in an awkward space. Haversham departs with Edward, to introduce him to the other sects, and Blackwood, his temporary replacement, doesn’t know what to do with the mortal at all. Hilda offers to keep an eye on her and that, so it seems, is that.

It rapidly transpires that Diana has been left without a car and has no means of getting insurance for one even if she wanted. On Edward’s wages she should be able to afford it, but when Hilda visits to see how things are going, the mortal insists that she cannot. Hilda agrees to take her out every Wednesday and help her run errands. Zelda approves of this if only to keep Hilda out of her hair – the amount of time she’ll save, a whole day in a blissfully near-empty house, is worth the loss of transportation.

The system works for a grand total of two weeks. Hilda vanishes just before the mortuary opens in the morning, and gets back by 4pm without fail. Zelda busies herself in the embalming room, or sits at her sewing machine and concentrates with an exactitude she could never hitherto master. She even picks up some of the extra slack with the housework – Wednesdays had been Hilda’s ‘cleaning day’, and although Zelda doesn’t do half as good a job, the rooms she cares about, the bathroom and the bedroom, are kept in acceptable condition.

And then, one horrible morning, there’s an after-hours phone call. A woman has lost her son and her husband in one swoop. Zelda is on the phone for less than ten minutes, but that alone is enough to tell her this case is not hers to handle.

In actuality, Zelda’s detachment makes her a very good mortician. She has a firm practicality and no-nonsense approach that puts a lot of mourners at ease, at least concerning their loved one’s remains. But there are some cases, some situations, that are distinctly Hildonian in nature. A tender grieving mother, young from the sounds of it, would not be comforted by Zelda’s helpful insights into embalming. She hands Hilda the notes she took on the phone and Hilda looks over them with cool appraisal, while stirring the stew, ladle in her other hand. Eventually she nods, agrees to handle the case, and tells Zelda she’ll need the house to herself.

Zelda takes a deep breath and accepts.

What Hilda neglects to mention is that tomorrow is Wednesday, and that Diana will be expecting someone to help her with the errands. They have an argument about it over breakfast, cut short only when the doorbell rings and a skinny brunette with deep-sunken eyes asks if this is the Spellman Mortuary. Hilda ushers the girl inside, and throws a pointed look at Zelda before disappearing into the office.

Twenty minutes and seven cigarettes later, Zelda is standing outside Diana’s house.

“Oh,” says Diana when she opens the door. “Hello.”

“Something came up,” says Zelda, “Hilda can’t come.”

Diana nods matter-of-factly.

“Right,” she says, “Just give me one moment. I’ve made a list.”

She vanishes inside and returns a minute later, wearing an ugly tan coat and carrying an excess of shopping bags. She looks tired, thinks Zelda. She looks smaller.

“Are you ready?” asks Diana.

Zelda nods.

Diana doesn’t dawdle, doesn’t stop to say hello or chat with her townsfolk. They complete the chores in less than two hours – a haircut, the garden centre, the pharmacy, and groceries. Zelda waits in a coffee shop across the street during the haircut, but she cannot wait across the street for the groceries. It’s the last thing on the list, and when they get back to the house, she stays behind to help Diana put the food away.

Diana folds the shopping bags carefully and tucks them in the cupboard underneath the sink. Zelda stands in the corner, watching her.

“What are you going to do now?” asks Diana.

The question is posed with neither animosity nor camaraderie – her poker face is back.

“Go home, probably,” says Zelda, taking a long drag of her cigarette.

She hasn’t asked if she could smoke inside, but she knows Diana won’t start a fight without good reason. Imagine Zelda’s surprise, then, when the mortal drags the witch’s duplicity onto the field of combat in a single word.

“Liar,” she says.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Liar,” repeats Diana, “You’re not going to go home at all.”

Zelda pushes off the counter, straightening up and tapping the end of her cigarette into the sink. It’s not a pretty sink, she reasons, so it doesn’t matter.

“And what makes you so sure of that?”

“If you wanted to go home, you wouldn’t have stayed to help with the bags. You’re stalling.”

Zelda narrows her eyes. Diana smiles with fake sweetness.

They reach an impasse.

“And what would you propose I do instead?” sniffs Zelda.

“Stay, if you like. We could play cards.”

Zelda snorts unflatteringly.

“You can’t win cards against a witch.”

Diana frowns.

“We cheat,” explains Zelda, “We always cheat.”

There’s a pause.

“Then how about chess?”

Zelda raises an eyebrow in surprise.

“How well do you play?”

“I beat Edward,” says Diana. “Most of the time.”

And that settles the matter. 

Diana brings a crystal ashtray into the living room and sets it up alongside the board. Edward doesn’t smoke – at least not anymore – and Zelda wants to ask where she got it from, but bites her tongue. She studies Diana’s fingers as she sets the pieces. They’re predictably delicate, with nails clean and unpolished. Her skin betrays only the faintest signs of age, and she handles the chessmen dexterously. Zelda clears her throat. Until now, her frustration at being chauffeur had overruled her ache for Diana’s body.

The mortal wins the first game. It takes them nearly two hours to complete and Zelda does not go down without a fight. So absorbing is the battle that she forgot her own smoke, and the ash tray is filled with the full length of the cigarette sans filter. Diana smirks proudly at her victory, and Zelda sets the stacked hearth ablaze just to frighten her. It works in so far as it makes Diana jump, but moments later she’s reaching out to warm her palms against the flame, and Zelda realises she has met her match.

“Another game?” asks Diana.

She withdraws her hands and turns to face Zelda. Zelda purses her lips.

“Do you have time?”

Diana’s laughter is hollow and bitter.

“Oh Zelda,” she says, “I have all the time in the world.”

There’s something unsettling about that, so unsettling that Zelda leans over and begins to set the board. She can feel Diana watching her.

“Would you like a drink?”

“Depends on what you have,” replies Zelda, without looking up.

“Edward said you like whiskey,” says Diana, giving a slight shrug. “We have Dalmore or Glenfiddich. Or Crown Royal,” she adds, “But I didn’t think that would suit you.”

Zelda stares at her wide-eyed. Diana’s lips curl into an impish smile.

“My,” is all the witch can manage, “You did come prepared.”

She takes the Glenfiddich, neat.

They drink slowly throughout the course of the next game. It’s shorter this time, and far more brutal. Zelda takes Diana’s king in under forty minutes. Frustrated, Diana sets the board up almost immediately after - it’s getting dark outside but she seems oblivious. Zelda flutters her fingers and stokes the fire a little more. Then, thirty minutes later, she wins the next game, too.

Diana frowns when she loses for a second time, crosses her arms and slumps back the armchair.

“It’s your fifth move,” says Zelda coolly, “You keep going wrong on your fifth move.”

The mortal exhales heavily but makes no reply.

“You’re playing too aggressively,” continues the witch, “It works well at the start, but you leave yourself wide open later on.”

Diana huffs then and finishes her glass – it’s only been refilled once, and by now it’s practically water. Zelda presses on.

“Still,” she says, “You play well, for your age. Who taught you?”

“No one,” says Diana, snippily. Then, a little softer: “Scholarship students got free lessons. I learned at university.”

“University?” asks Zelda, face tickled with pleasant surprise.

“What? You think Edward just plucked me off the street?”

“What did you study?”

“Physics,” says Diana. Her reply is suddenly soft and her expression follows suit. She’s not quite glazing over, but in relinquishing anger her features are flooding with nostalgia. “I’m a physicist,” she continues. “That’s how we met.”

“Oh?”

The nostalgia slips away. Diana clears her throat and sits up straighter in her chair. Zelda almost regrets her query, for now in place of dreamy contentedness, Diana is once more wearing her infallible veneer of indifference. The look renders Zelda equal parts infuriated and morose.

“I study black holes,” says Diana. “I _studied_ black holes. Edward did too, at the time. Purest evil, he called them. We worked on it together for months. We never could figure out if they were the work of your God or mine.”

Zelda swallows. The sun has long since dipped below the earth, and in the light of the fire Diana’s eyes are devoid of all feeling. She suddenly feels as if she’s intruded on a painfully intimate moment, far more so than when she blindly stumbled upon Diana at the top the stairs. She may not be a priest, but she’s hearing a confession anyway.

And it’s made all the worse because Diana knows things about Edward that Zelda so clearly does not. Diana has a knowledge of Edward that Zelda will never possess – that Zelda never _could_ possess. And although it goes both ways, although Zelda should be secure in her relationship with her brother, should be secure in the centuries that they have spent walking the same earth, she is bitterly jealous. Jealous of Edward for having Diana, jealous of Diana for having Edward.

The phone in the hall rings suddenly, shrill and sharp.

Diana wipes her eyes without compassion and stands to answer it.

Hilda is worried about them – she’s ringing to make sure everything is okay.

\---

The following week, Zelda manufactures an excuse to see the mortal.

Hilda seems surprised, but to Zelda’s relief doesn’t ask too many questions. She learns later this is a result of practicality rather than kindness. No one has been vacuuming and no one has been tidying downstairs – the sitting room is covered in dust, and the office had to be scrubbed furiously when Hilda’s solo client returned for a follow-up talk. Ambrose, thick skinned and far from squeamish, has been struggling to stomach the embalming room. That, rather than Hilda’s benevolent nature, is the reason Zelda gets the car.

Diana, in contrast, does not seem at all surprised when Zelda knocks on her door. In fact, the mortal looks practically prepared for it. She’s wearing her coat when she answers and the list of chores extends no further than ‘groceries’, which they complete in under an hour. Zelda stays behind to help put them away again. She still looks smaller, Zelda thinks, far smaller than before the engagement was announced, but not quite as tired as last week.

Diana stuffs the shopping bags away and then turns to Zelda, smiling brightly.

“Chess?”

Zelda nods. She continues smoking without permission, and instead of pouring her a glass, Diana brings the whole bottle out this time, setting it next to the foot of the armchair. Zelda fills it as high as propriety will allow, tracking the intricate movement of Diana’s hands when she sets up the board. But the mortal loses the first game. Swiftly too, so swiftly Zelda is disappointed – perhaps Diana will not heed her advice and will continue to charge ahead with her stubborn predictability.

Yet Diana doesn’t seem frustrated by her loss, and rearranges the board placidly. Zelda lights another cigarette.

“What do you do?” she asks, exhaling out the corner of her mouth. “All day, I mean?”

“Whatever I please.”

Her tone is even, her expression is flat, and from that alone Zelda is suspicious. But Diana’s just finished setting the pieces and she’s sitting back in her chair expectantly. Zelda purses her lips.

“Ready?” asks Diana.

“Whenever you are.”

The question’s superfluous – Diana’s had the first-move advantage in every game they’ve played so far. It’s up to her when they start. Perhaps, thinks Zelda as she watches Diana’s opening gambit, once the mortal truly knows how to play, they’ll be able to switch colours.

She realises too late that this game is different. Diana had been testing something on the first, tracking her skills of observation. She’s playing far more cautiously now, for they’re seven moves in and she’s not even touched the backrow. Zelda’s cigarette has long since gone out but she clings onto the holder all the same.

There’s a pawn she’s not making use of and it’s annoying her.

“Zelda?” asks Diana quite suddenly, “Did you go to university?”

Zelda snorts and doesn’t look up.

“I was born 172 years ago, what do you think?”

“But Edward did?”

“Yes,” says Zelda, exposing a rook, “He did.”

“Don’t you resent him?”

“I’m sorry?”

She tries to glare at Diana, but Diana is hunched over in her seat staring fixatedly at the board. The mortal shrugs.

“I know I would,” she replies. “I know it was a different time, but still. If my brothers had got so much just because of their sex, well…” She pauses, reaches down and moves a bishop to take Zelda’s unused pawn. “I’d be mad.”

“We’ve been alive a very long time,” sniffs Zelda. She leans over the board, barely acknowledging the fallen pawn, and moves a rook in anger. “You learn to live with it.”

“But in the Church of Night too,” says Diana emphatically. “Edward told me there’s no female priests, not even in the more liberal sects.”

Diana’s fingers hover above the board as she decides her move, but then she withdraws and places her hands in her lap.

“And you seem far better suited to it than him. Priesthood, I mean. You’re smarter, keener. You could’ve conquered the world if you were born a few decades later.”

Zelda stiffens in her chair.

“But you weren’t,” says Diana, “And because Edward is a boy and because Edward is the oldest, he got everything. He _gets_ everything.” She looks up from the board. “Doesn’t that frustrate you?”

Zelda releases the cigarette from its holder and stubs it out although she doesn’t need to. She picks up the drink and her fingers curl so tight they might crack the glass. But she tries to keep her expression serene – if Diana is allowed to learn chess then Zelda should be allowed to learn vacuity.

“And what about Hilda?” she asks, taking a short sip, “According to your theory Hilda should be most bitter of all.”

She peers over the board and tries to analyse Diana’s pieces, if only to calm herself.

“Hilda’s different,” says Diana, giving a nonchalant wave of her hand and returning to the board. “She doesn’t count. She’s too…”

“Too what?”

“Well, you know,” says Diana, “Too…”

“Too _what_?”

Diana pauses.

“She’s just different,” she says quietly. 

“Diana,” says Zelda, voice very low, “There is a finite number of people who may speak ill of Hildegard. Do not, for a single second, assume you are one of them.”

Diana nods without looking up. She does not seem intimidated, at least not yet, but she’s not stupid either. Her hand hovers over the board again.

“Edward speaks ill of her constantly,” she says, moving a knight over the tiles. “In a way I don’t think you ever would.”

Zelda is not surprised. Angry, yes, because Hilda has shown him nothing but compassion and good humour, but not surprised.

“He is not a kind man,” says Diana, as if reading her thoughts.

Zelda sneers unflatteringly.

“And you think I’m a kind woman?”

She moves a bishop without thinking it through.

“I think you’re a strong one,” replies Diana, extracting her queen from the back row. “And I’d rather spend my time surrounded by strength than malice.”

She’s too flattered to be truly sarcastic, but Zelda aims for derision nonetheless.

“You don’t know me at all,” she sniffs.

“Perhaps,” replies Diana, looking up to catch Zelda’s eye, “But I’d love the opportunity to find out.”

Zelda’s heart lurches.

She thought she’d suppressed her want, but Diana’s extracted it with the precision of a doctor taking blood. She feels longing gnawing at her ribcage, seeping through her bones and into her bloodstream. And this is a particularly deadly strain of hunger, for there’s more here than unfettered carnality. Zelda wants to reach across and run her fingers through Diana’s hair, push down on her shoulders until she feels light as a feather, caress the back of her neck until the mortal is nothing but bliss and being. What Zelda wants, she realises with encroaching horror, is something sentimental.

Diana’s straight brows arch and she smiles a Cheshire grin.

“Check,” she says.

Zelda looks at the pieces. The ice in her glass is melting and she can feel her face flushed crimson. She knocks the whiskey back and finishes her drink in an attempt to justify the glow. Then she stares at the board fixatedly.

“Would you like another?” asks Diana, still smiling.

“Shut up,” says Zelda, “I’m thinking.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pacing? a logical plotline? never heard of her ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

They continue like this for just over two months.

Zelda takes to visiting on the weekends, Mondays too if she can. Her excuses grow weaker and weaker, and sometimes she invents deceptions just to steal the car away. Hilda notices, of course, but has the good grace to say nothing. She’s probably just glad we’re getting along, thinks Zelda.

Each Wednesday her and Diana complete their chores swiftly, as if they’re racing to see who can finish the fastest. Zelda finds a strange, pathetic, thrill in it all – will she clean the kitchen tiles before Diana finishes the fire grate? Will she put the groceries away before Diana has scrubbed down the sink?

By far the worst of all the pathetic thrills comes in week seven, when Zelda accompanies Diana to the hairdressers once more. Yet again she sits in the café across the street, still too awkward to wait in the shop, but this time she cannot concentrate on her paper. She keeps stealing glances over the road, thinks of the ugly hairdresser pressing his fingers against Diana’s scalp, running his hands along the side of her face to check if the hair is even. She drinks three coffees in rapid succession and blames them for her jitters.

The chess games become more equal. Zelda stops giving Diana advice because Diana no longer needs it, and they take turns with the colours because first-move advantage stops being an advantage. Zelda feels Diana blossoming in her palm, and it floods her with a strange mixture of pride and envy. It had taken Zelda decades to learn to play like this, not that she’d tell the mortal of course. Diana has a gift for strategy that Zelda will probably never acquire. 

But more than the games, more than the pathetic excitement, Zelda finds joy in the conversation. Diana’s past seeps into their discussions like dye on fabric, and Zelda’s past, though already filtered through the unflattering veneer of her older brother, begins to make an appearance too. She tells Diana of her years in Hong Kong, the decade she spent in Paris, the quarter century in Berlin – she’s forgotten how long her own life is until she’s narrating it to someone else.

Diana is fixated, but to call her enthralled would do her a discredit. The mortal knows her own worth and her eyes glint eagerly when Zelda enquires into her research. Diana has an understanding of the world that Zelda had never even considered, a perspective the witch couldn’t begin to understand. She doesn’t agree with it, of course: Who decides if the charge is positive or negative? What does the electron do from such an insurmountable distance? And how, _how,_ do numbers in the form of letters and letters in the form of numbers dictate the pull of the moon?

It’s mortals misunderstanding magic, she thinks, it’s mortals trying to quantify the unquantifiable. But it’s compelling nonetheless – the theories, the hypotheses, the matter that can be felt but never seen. Wrong, but compelling.

To her surprise, Diana seems intrigued by more mundane skillsets. She does not jabber over magic, does not swoon at the thought of the witch’s impossible powers, but takes an interest in things Zelda had hitherto considered prosaic. When she learns Zelda can sew, she spends a full fifteen minutes expressing an almost gushy admiration. She spends almost as long talking about Hilda’s cooking. Diana possesses no such practical skills. She can barely do the laundry. The mortal’s not built to be a housewife, Zelda realises, yet that’s precisely what she’s become. 

She almost asks Diana about this, almost demands ‘So what _can_ you do?’.

But then she remembers Diana’s sharp mind and her propensity for performing chores on all fours, and realises Edward has shackled one of the most accomplished women Zelda’s ever met. Diana has relinquished her life to further Edward’s career. _That,_ she realises, is what Diana can do. She can be the most illustrious conquest Edward has ever made. The thought makes Zelda sick and, all of a sudden, she is no longer jealous of either of them. She still wants Diana, she will probably always want Diana, but not like this. Not the way Edward has her.

Her wanting does not go unnoticed.

\---

“You and Di have gotten quite close, haven’t you Zelds?” asks Hilda, one evening. They had a funeral this afternoon, and the only nourishment in the house is a selection of pathetic little canapés. That, and whatever Hilda’s making now.

Zelda straightens the broadsheet and holds it high enough to hide her face.

“Am I to congratulate you on your powers of observation?”

She can hear Hilda sighing, but when her sister replies it’s surprisingly patient.

“I just think it’s nice,” she says, stirring carefully, “But...”

The broadsheet folds in half with a whooshing noise.

“But what?”

“Well,” says Hilda, wincing slightly and drawing out the word.

There’s a clattering noise from upstairs and Ambrose yells something indistinct. Hilda glances up at the sound but Zelda doesn’t. She’s still waiting for an answer.

“The thing is,” continues Hilda, taking the spoon out of the pot and wiping it, “Edward rang. Haversham got food poisoning last week, so they’ve cut the tour short, seeing as they only had one more stops to make anyway.”

Zelda snorts at the mundane idiocy of it all.

“He’s coming back next week,” adds Hilda quietly.

Oh, thinks Zelda.

“Diana didn’t tell me,” she says.

“He only rang this morning.”

The tap starts running as Hilda prepares the washing up.

“But that doesn’t… That doesn’t mean anything,” replies Zelda, pushing her hair back. “It’s not as if he can ban me from seeing her for Satan’s sake.”

“No, well, that’s not the thing I wanted to talk to you about.”

Hilda turns her back on Zelda and loudly dumps the cooking utensils into the sink.

“They’ve set a date for the wedding,” she continues.

“Good for them.”

“It’s in two months’ time.”

“Wonderful, just like Edward to give us short notice.”

“And they want you to make the dress.”

Hilda turns off the tap. She’s barely started the washing up, Zelda can see it still sitting in the sink, but she’s drying her hands anyway. Then the younger Spellman walks over to the pot of hot soup and grips the handle. She doesn’t move beyond this and Zelda recognises it as self-defence – if Hilda threw that now she’d scar Zelda for life. The Cain Pit may cure death, but it cannot smooth hypertrophic skin.

“ _That,_ ” says Hilda, “Is what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Zelda takes a deep, deep breath. She folds the newspaper properly and puts it on the table, then leans back in the chair, arms crossed. Hilda chews the inside of her cheek as she tries to find the words.

“I’ve seen you like this before,” she says, slowly. “And neither time ended well.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Radcliffe in ‘98 and Akhmatova in ‘32,” replies Hilda, without missing a beat.

The dates she’s referencing are over a hundred years apart, but she doesn’t elaborate because there’s no need to. Zelda glares in utmost disgust.

“If you’re suggesting me and the mortal – “

“I’m not suggesting anything. But I haven’t seen you like this since… Since then. That’s all.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” spits Zelda.

Hilda’s knuckles whiten on the handle.

“Perhaps. But this isn’t anyone we’re talking about. Not,” she adds hastily, “That _they_ were just anyone, but…”

There’s another pause.

“Just be careful, Zelds, okay?”

“There’s nothing to be careful over,” says Zelda shortly, scooping up the broadsheet and propping it open in front of her face.

They hear Ambrose padding downstairs and the atmosphere shifts. Hilda goes back to the washing up; Zelda lights another cigarette and smokes it from behind the safety of her paper.

She knows Hilda sensed the lie, but she had to lie anyway.

The truth is still too painful for her to admit.

\---

The dress takes Zelda longer to make than expected.

Every time she touches the cloth she thinks of the body that will wear it, and Zelda finds she can spend no more than a few hours with the thing before it becomes too much. Edward was there when she took the initial measurements and it’s the closest to torture Zelda thinks she’s ever come. Actual torture, that is, not the kind they practice at the Academy.

The tailor’s dummy remains in the embalming room. This is an arguably stupid move considering the dress is white and the embalming room is frequently covered in fluids that are decidedly _not_ white, but Zelda puts it in the office every time she’s finished and she considers that enough. Besides, she reasons with Hilda and Ambrose, there’s not enough space anywhere else, and she doesn’t trust them not to ruin it if she worked upstairs. They exchange a wary look, but otherwise let Zelda have her way.

The wedding itself will take place at the church, obviously, but for the reception they’ve rented out the great hall at the Academy of Unseen Arts. Zelda thinks the move is not only utterly tasteless but also entirely inconsiderate – Hilda had a miserable time at school and to expect her to traipse around as caterer is plain cruelty. And she _will_ be caterer, this Zelda already knows, because Hilda told her so. Zelda will make the dress, Hilda will make the food, Edward will stand around and look pretty. Zelda should be angry but she’s not – this is the way it’s always been.

Besides, she thinks, as she tacks the hem during the penultimate fitting, at least that way Edward won’t stick his nose in and ruin everything. She shuffles round on her knees, and from above her Diana sighs slightly. Zelda can’t tell if it’s a happy sigh or a sad one. There’s a full-length mirror in front of Diana, complete with two adjacent side pieces so she can see herself from all angles. Zelda can feel her turning her head.

“Stay still,” she mutters, pushing a needle through the fabric.

Diana stops moving and stays put until Zelda is done. Zelda pushes up off the floor and stands behind her model, checking the bottom of the dress, the cut of the shoulders, the length of the sleeves.

“Lift up your arms,” she says, and Diana does so. The dress rises, the shoulders wrinkle, but the inside seams do not strain. Zelda walks a full circle around her. “Put them down.” Diana lowers her arms.

“Will it be ready in time for the wedding?” she asks.

It’s a stupid question.

“It’s almost ready now,” replies Zelda, standing behind Diana again and watching her in the mirror. “Just some tidying up and an underskirt. Then we’re finished.”

She says the last part with a certainty she does not truly feel.

“Will you look after it,” says Diana, “Before and after?”

“Don’t you want to keep it?”

Diana looks away from her own reflection and meets Zelda’s eyes in the mirror.

“No,” she says.

They stare at each other a little too long.

“Edward didn’t ask me to make the dress, did he?”

Diana shakes her head.

“You did.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to feel you,” says Diana.

Zelda looks at her own face in the mirror. She looks like a startled horse.

“If anyone heard…”

She’s trying to regain her composure but it’s not working.

“I know,” says Diana.

She turns to face Zelda, taking a stride forward at the same time, and suddenly they’re close enough that Zelda can feel Diana’s breath on her collar bone. The height difference always felt like an advantage, but now she’s not so sure.

“Edward doesn’t like sharing,” is all she can manage, whispered in a voice hoarse with want.

“I know.”

Diana doesn’t move, at least not that Zelda can see. But she can feel Diana’s fingers reaching forward, groping the tiny spit of air between their hands. Zelda offers her forefingers and Diana’s own hook round them. Then her middle finger, her ring finger, and her pinky. Before Zelda knows it, their hands are interlaced, palms are pressed together. The sheer innocence of it all throws her off guard. Zelda’s used to orgies and whips – not tenderness.

And still neither of them moves. She can feel Diana studying her face: the shape of her brow, the curve of her lips, the shifting uncertainty of her expression. Looking at her like this, thinks Zelda, Diana seems so young. So young and so cruel. Diana bites her lip, squeezes Zelda’s hands. Zelda watches every tiny expression in slow motion.

“Leave him,” she whispers, as Diana’s breath tickles her chest.

She feels the mortal tense.

“Please.” 

Diana sighs at that. Zelda can feel the rise and fall of her chest against her torso and it sends warmth pooling through her entire body. She fancies she can feel Diana in her toes.

But then the mortal pulls away and the warmth is gone.

She steps back and goes to sit on the settee, crinkling the dress in the process. Zelda raises her hand to her heart in an attempt to slow its beating. Diana sighs again.

“I can’t,” she says.

Zelda wants to wrap her in a blanket and bundle her home. She wants to brush her hair and tell her she’s precious. The emotion is foreign and unwelcome and Zelda feels like a schoolboy with a crush on his teacher. If this were just lust, she would know what to do. If this were just pity, if this were just sorrow, she would know where to scratch, where to bite, know which hallways to set aflame. But that idiot Hilda was right. She’s only felt this twice before, and twice is not enough to understand.

She sits next to Diana.

“He won’t hurt you,” she says, voice soft, “I wouldn’t let him.”

“I know he won’t,” replies Diana. “I told you, he’s a perfect gentleman. He _loves_ me.”

“Then what?”

Diana looks away.

“I signed a contract,” she says slowly, “Before I even met you.”

Zelda’s jaw stiffens.

“What sort of contract?”

“It was before the Feast,” replies Diana, still staring dead ahead. “Long before. Remember what I told you?” she continues, “When we communed with the Council and the Dark Lord spoke? There was more than one condition. And there was more at stake than Edward’s career.”

“Diana,” whispers Zelda, “What have you done?”

Diana curls her lips inwards and looks at the floor. Then her features scrunch together in ugly remorse and two thin tears run down each cheek. Zelda wants to wipe them away but doesn’t.

“A pact signed in blood,” she says. “Not quite the same as yours, but close enough. I couldn’t stop now if I wanted to.”

“Does Edward know?”

Diana nods.

“He signed too. We signed… Together.”

“And he regrets it?”

“No. Only me.”

Zelda doesn’t know what to do.

“Why?” she asks.

“I wanted to learn.”

“Learn what?”

“Everything.”

And suddenly the fog clears – she knew Diana’s brilliance had to come from somewhere. 

Zelda’s mouth twists into a thick angry sneer. How mortal, she thinks. How blind, how stupid, how utterly, perfectly mortal.

“You’re a fool.”

Her anger, her frustration and disappointment, must have been blisteringly obvious because Diana looks up sharply. She wipes her face with the back of her palms and straightens her torso, turning to look Zelda in the eyes. Then she takes a long deep breath and exhales.

“It was a mistake,” she says.

“The Dark Lord doesn’t make mistakes.”

Diana swallows and Zelda watches the movement of her neck.

“I didn’t say it was his.”

“So, what?” snorts Zelda, “Are you cosying up to me in the hope I can fix your errors? Has Hilda already refused to help?”

“No,” says Diana, and her tone cuts through Zelda like a knife. It’s earnest and passionate and desperate and although Zelda’s trying to maintain her anger, she can feel it faltering. Diana’s too enticing for her own good, she thinks. The mortal’s probably not even doing this on purpose.

“No,” repeats Diana, “And even if you could, I wouldn’t ask. Besides,” she continues, “If it weren’t for that pact, I never would have met you. And I wouldn’t have missed that for the world.”

No, Zelda thinks, no, no, this isn’t how seduction works. This isn’t how it’s meant to happen. But Diana is smiling, a gentle, agonizing smile, and Zelda’s resolve is crumbling to dust. 

“We’re not lovers,” whispers the witch.

“I know,” the mortal replies.

Zelda looks at her, really looks at her.

Right now, becoming Diana’s lover is all she wants in the world.

Perhaps Diana’s reading her thoughts then; perhaps she’s acquired a new skill along with her sharpened mind. She carefully places one hand above Zelda’s knee and gives a small squeeze. It’s probably meant to be reassuring, thinks Zelda. This is probably meant to be calm reassurance that everything’s okay. But to Zelda it doesn’t feel like that at all. It feels like hot fire.

She keeps her hands in her lap because she’s afraid of them, afraid that if she raises one finger she’ll be at Diana’s throat. But she cannot stop anything else. She leans forward, inches closer, millimetre by millimetre and she can tell Diana’s doing the same because her hand is moving higher, up and up along the outside of Zelda’s thigh. They’re facing each other, knees touching, and Diana is so close now Zelda can almost taste her. Diana does not open her mouth to speak.

It should be uncomfortable but it isn’t; the angle should make this difficult but it doesn’t. Diana slips one leg in between Zelda’s and Zelda clings to it as if her life depends on it. At first, it’s chaste, a press on the lips, basking in nothing but hope and shared breath. But then Diana takes a gulp, pulls away only by a fraction, and Zelda knows it’s not enough. It will never be enough. The flames lick at her heart like a funeral pyre.

She pushes forwards, pressing herself into Diana so hard they almost knock teeth, but she doesn’t care. Her hands run up Diana’s thighs and onto her hips, her waist, her chest. One snakes up the nape of her neck and grips her hair, the other back to Diana’s legs, hitching up her skirt. She feels Diana’s surprise and then her release, her own fingers curling into the fabric on Zelda’s thigh, the other hand holding herself upright against the arm of the settee.

Zelda all but crawls onto the couch, her hand on Diana’s chest, pushing gently. She wants her to lie down, to place her head against the arm rest and part her legs. But Diana relinquishes slowly – she may have accepted the inevitable, she may have given into her own temptation, but that does not mean Zelda can lead her by the hand. The mortal pushes back, raising her hand until it’s at Zelda’s chest. And then, only then, does she slowly lean back.

It lasts barely thirty seconds.

There’s a ripping noise, the disintegration of fabric far too delicate for their need. They freeze, eyes wide in mutual horror. Only now does Zelda see how awkward the angle is, how uncomfortable it must look. She scrambles off Diana hastily and Diana stands, rushing to the mirror to find the tear in the fabric. Zelda stares too, grabs Diana by the shoulders and forces her to stay still, circling like a vulture as she tries to pinpoint the lesion.

“Take it off,” she says eventually.

It’s not sexy and it’s not meant to be.

“What?”

“Go upstairs and take it off, or are you deaf as well as stupid?”

Diana’s face crumples in the mirror; Zelda meets her hurt with disdain.

“Go.”

Edward’s home and in the hallway by the time Diana comes back down. Zelda snatches the dress away and leaves without so much as a goodbye.

\---

She kills Hilda that evening. Kills her and buries her and thinks the exercise and the blood will soothe her frustration, but it doesn’t. Neither does the bath that follows, nor the bottle of gin that follows that. She changes the sheets in the spare bedroom and leaves Hilda’s nightclothes outside the door. At midnight, her own door is locked, key carefully resting on the chest of drawers. She tugs off her dressing gown and places it on the vanity. Then, after one final swig of gin, she slips under the covers and turns off the bedside light.

Half an hour later, her face wet with tears and her fingers wet with something else, Zelda reaches the dizzying apex of her own wretchedness.

 


	5. Chapter 5

They never discuss the kiss.

Edward is present at every occasion they might have hitherto spent alone, and Diana dotes upon him in a way Zelda considers positively obscene. She kisses him on the cheek every time she sees him, wraps her arm through his whenever they’re in the same room, even rests her head on his shoulder when logistics allow. Zelda’s older brother laps up the attention and Zelda realises that he probably doesn’t even know what’s changed. He probably thinks Diana’s still just happy to have him home.

Yet, if that were all, Zelda might be able to stomach it. Might be able to stomach Diana, like everyone else in the world, fawning over Edward. But it’s worse than that, because now Diana’s ignoring her as much as humanly possible. She nods and says ‘thank you’ at the final dress fitting, generously bequeaths Zelda the most basic courtesies, but beyond that there’s nothing at all. No more chess, no more whiskey; no sly smiles, no stolen glances.

The mortal spends hours on the phone with Hilda, but Zelda only ever hears her younger sister’s half of the conversation. She’s too proud to phone herself, or at least fancies herself thus, for the one time Zelda rings the house Diana hangs up without a word. How, thinks Zelda, has this happened? Diana has beckoned Zelda closer and closer with a tender, pining hand, yet the moment Zelda acquiesces Diana rips away as if she’s been burnt. Maybe I was too harsh, thinks Zelda, maybe ‘deaf or stupid’ was too unfair. But it was the heat of the moment, she reasons, Diana must understand that.

Perhaps Diana does; perhaps Diana doesn’t. Perhaps she’s enjoyed the chase but found her prize lacking. Perhaps she thought Zelda really _was_ just her friend and didn’t sense the baser emotions until it was too late. Perhaps she thinks if she ignores the sentiments they’ll simply go away. Perhaps she was only lonely. Perhaps now Edward’s back she doesn’t care. Perhaps, thinks Zelda. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

\---

Zelda drinks more at the wedding than she’s ever drunk in her life.

It’s a miracle she makes it through the ceremony. If only Edward had not commandeered their younger sister, things might have gone smoother. Zelda might not have drunk her seventh, eighth, ninth glass of wine; she might not have monopolised the decanter of whisky; she might not have snatched the bottle of gin from behind the bar. She might not have stolen the bottle of vodka she’s holding now.

Because the fact is, if Hilda were not busy, Zelda would have had someone to boss around. Someone to terrorise. She would have had someone to keep her occupied. But Hilda _is_ busy. Zelda’s reminded of her busyness every time the younger Spellman rushing past carrying trays of food, every time she sees Hilda frantically trying to refill the bowl of punch that’s deliberately too sweet for Zelda to enjoy. Zelda tries not to be malicious.

Hilda is busy in the kitchen, she thinks, just like Edward asked.    

She has this thought twice more. Whereas the first time was genuine, the second is resentful. She’s just started on the gin, and sneers when Hilda rushes past the bar. Hilda is busy in the kitchen, Zelda thinks, just the same as always. The third time she has this thought, she’s sauntering down a vacant corridor, inching her way towards the school’s main entrance. The vodka bottle is almost empty, and she’s rocking back and forth like a ship in a great storm. Hilda is busy in the kitchen, Zelda thinks, where she _belongs_.

She opens the doors of the Academy and almost falls down the steps. The funny thing about schools is… They’re schools. The students here are different of course – fucking’s allowed, legal age permitting. And alcohol? Turning water into wine is quite literally on the curriculum. But smoking? Nooo, never smoking. Only outside for that.

Outside is cold and crisp tonight, and the pearlescent moon shines brilliantly onto the damp earth.

All the better for it, because Zelda needs all the light she can get. She finishes the bottle and throws it to one side, stumbling again when she reaches the bottom of the steps. She just about rights herself, only to lurch violently and grab hold of the first thing she can find. A tree, thank Satan, not one of those statues of the Dark Lord. She folds from her stomach and retches for what feels like an eternity. Then, when she finally does puke, it’s nothing but blood and water. Blood and water; wine and gin. No difference, thinks Zelda, no difference at all.

She stands up, swaying, and rips her stockings as she tries to grasp the cigarette case. No lighter, again. She frowns as she tries to remember the spell.

“ _Serpens_ ,” she begins, “ _Serpens, sitis, ardor manus_ – “

“I knew you’d be out here.”

Zelda stares at Diana.

She’s descending the steps, light from behind rendering her a silhouette, light from above giving her an ethereal halo. The white of her dress is bright in the gloom. She looks for all the world like a biblical apparition of heaven.

“Oh, fuck off!” Zelda yells.

The words are slurred and she’s somehow turned three syllables into five.

Diana pauses. Zelda knows this is the most undignified Diana’s ever seen her, and she relishes in the mortal’s shock. That is, until she realises that in her desire to send Diana packing, she’s accidentally sent the cigarette flying. She swears once more, then crouches over and scrabbles in the dirt for her tiny cancerous pleasure. Diana begins walking towards her.

When the witch finally goes to stand, she’s rocking violently, and almost loses her footing over an ungainly piece of shrubbery. If Diana weren’t there, she would’ve fallen right back into her own vomit. (Zelda doesn’t realise this, she never realises this.) But, instead of relinquishing her to a watery grave, Diana gently guides the witch round the other side of the tree and make her sit down. Zelda lets herself be led. She cares too much about the cigarette now – it’s the only part of the night she wants to remember.

Diana sits too, but Zelda ignores her entirely. Eventually the flame catches and she cackles in triumph. She can feel Diana folding her arms.

“I shouldn’t have let you get this bad,” says the mortal, “Hilda’s going to kill me.”

“Bad!?” shrieks Zelda, “Bad!? I’m spectacular, I’ll have you know. Simply _marvellous._ ”

She drags the last word out and turns to Diana as she enunciates, spewing a thick stench of puke, alcohol, and smoke. She grins vindictively as Diana winces.

“You’re drunk,” she says.

“’You’re drunk!’” mimics Zelda, in a ridiculous voice. She blames being back at school for bringing out her childishness, but the school has nothing to do with it. “Of course, I’m drunk, you imbecile. What would you have me do, have me – ”

She cuts off, unable to find the words. In place of speech she begins to wave the cigarette around, gesticulating wildly, and it singes the outer edge of Diana’s wedding gown. (Zelda never realises this either, even when she takes the dress back.)

“Would you have me sit in there,” she says finally, “While you, you, swan about like a… A _whore_?”

The cruelty’s unnecessary. Or is it?, thinks Zelda. Diana looks like she’s about to cry. Zelda should feel worse, but she doesn’t.

“Don’t,” says Diana, “Please don’t.”

“Don’t _what_? This is all _your_ fault!”

She jabs one finger into Diana’s bare sternum and leaves it there. Her breathing grows shallow and she tries furiously to concentrate on her anger, but other parts of her mind are clawing through the cracks. The tip of her finger suddenly feels very, very, hot. Was this the hand she lit her cigarette with? She can’t remember.

“This is all your fault,” she repeats, hissing through her teeth. “ _You_ signed the contract, _you_ regretted your choice, _you_ decided this.”

“I didn’t decide all of it,” says Diana. “I didn’t know you would – ”

“Would _what_!?”

Diana breaks her gaze, looks down and swallows.

“I didn’t know this would happen,” she says, quietly.

Zelda snorts and turns, tearing her hand away. In her wake she leaves a small crescent bruise. Exquisitely formed and perfectly balanced, it will fade by the morning.

“I hate you,” whispers Zelda, “I hate you with every bone in my body.”

“I know,” whispers Diana.

They sit, still as statues, breathing.

A few moments later, Zelda feels a single tear, greasy and damp, running down her cheek. She sniffs slightly, disgusted by her own vulnerability, and wipes it away with her palm. How loathsome, she thinks, how pathetic. She takes a drag on the cigarette and tries not to choke.

“I admired you so much,” says Diana, softly. “You were so majestic, that first time I met you. You were so regal, so…” She sighs heavily and peters off, but Zelda’s pretending not to care so she doesn’t turn around. “I don’t know how this happened,” continues the mortal, “I didn’t… I only wanted your friendship.”

There’s a lightness to her voice, a fragility, and although they’re sitting next to each other, she sounds very far away. Zelda steals a quick glimpse, just out the corner of her eye – Diana’s wearing her mask again, the one that has hitherto worked so well, but now tears are visibly pricking at the corner of her eyes regardless. Perhaps she’s trying to bury herself under that mask, thinks Zelda. I wonder if she’ll ever come back.

At that instant Diana opens her mouth to speak, and Zelda believes she really must have learnt to read minds after all.

“I only _want_ your friendship,” she says.

Zelda breaks into a loud, drunken cackle.

“Keep telling yourself that.”

Diana doesn’t reply, and the silence weighs heavy on Zelda’s soul.

She takes a drag on her cigarette just to fill it.

“I suppose he’s going to fuck you in that dress,” she says at last, “Isn’t he? He’s going to fuck you and you’re going to feel _me._ ”

“Stop.”

“No. You wanted to _feel me_. You wanted to hold hands and skip down the lane like schoolgirls!”

She breaks into a theatrically out of key nursery rhyme that punches any remaining good-feeling to smithereens. 

“I’m going to get Hilda,” says Diana, very, very quickly.

She stands and brushes the dirt off her dress.

Zelda stops singing.

“You will do no such thing!” she roars, but the mortal’s already paces away.

She tries to leap to her feet but only staggers. She drops the cigarette without thinking and attempts to follow Diana, but the roots of the tree are knotted and tangled and stepping over them is making her brain hurt. Her ankles aren’t built for this.

“Come back!” she yells, “Come back right _now_!”

“Is everything okay?”

A third voice. Zelda looks up, squints at the entryway. Edward. Edward standing tall and proud and not bothering to descend the steps.

“She’s a _whore_!” screams Zelda, at the top of her lungs.

Diana continues marching towards him and says something Zelda can’t hear. He doesn’t move.

“She’s a filthy cheating whore!” continues Zelda, shrieking like a harpy, “And she never _,_ never, loved you Edward! She doesn’t even want to fuck you, Edward! I know everything Edward, she tells me _everything_! You can’t trust her, you’ll never, ever, be able to trust her!”

Diana reaches the top of the steps and they close the door behind them, but Zelda can’t stop.

“And she’s _cheap_ , Edward! She’s cheap!”

(“What’s going on?” asks Edward, once they’re inside.

“She came on to me at the dress fitting,” says Diana, “Ignore her.”

Edward sighs heavily and wraps a protective arm over his wife’s shoulder.

He squeezes slightly, and then he says:

“I thought something like this might happen.”)

“A cheap, cheap, _ugly_ , whore! She’s a… She’s a… A _slag_!” Zelda doesn’t usually borrow from Hilda’s vocabulary, but the English have a way with insults. Especially this one, which twists and turns hilariously as it’s mangled by Zelda’s accent. “Slag!” she repeats, “Slut! She’s a slut! A cheap…A cheap… Oh, fuck.”

The world’s spinning too fast.

Zelda half-sits, half-falls onto the ground, but the incessant rotations just don’t stop. She gives in to gravity and lets herself lie flat, staring upwards into the night. If I can just stay like this for a minute, she thinks, if I can just lie down. There’s rage and bile on her lips, only she can’t figure out which is metaphysical and which is real. She ponders this for a time, before deciding it doesn’t really matter. It’s all the same thing in the end. 

The sky is clear as clear could be, and the stars are twinkling at her, winking and flirting gaily. Her mind quiets as she watches them: erudite, beautiful, and so very, very, far away.

So many stars, she thinks, and not one of them will ever love me.

\---

When she wakes up her mouth tastes of charcoal and her entire body aches. She’s on an unfamiliar pillow in an unfamiliar room that reeks of hospital. The light is harsh and synthetic. A few feet away she can see Hilda sitting in a plastic chair, head rolled back, snoring quietly. Zelda smirks into the pillow and shuts her eyes again. Good old Hilda, she thinks. Good, old, reliable Hilda.

She has half a mind to send Edward the hospital bill.

But she doesn’t.

 


	6. Chapter 6

The world moves differently after that.

There’s a yawning chasm between the Spellman Mortuary and the house of the High Priest, what was once a minor ideological splinter now rupturing into an uncrossable gulf. Ambrose barely acknowledges it, safe and sound as he is in the attic. Hilda is caught in the middle as directly as possible, though she chokes with awkwardness rather than anything bitter. Zelda and Edward, once thick as thieves now as close as Helios and Pluto, feel it worst of all. And Diana? Zelda doesn’t know about Diana, and she doesn’t care to find out.

The witch spends a solid month avoiding church, and, simultaneously, Edward. In the place of communion, she updates her weekly schedule to include a trip over Sweetwater River, where no one knows her and no one’s inclined to ask any questions. She picks a different bar every week, all seedy, all under gang control, and the outcome’s always the same. A pretty blonde, male or female, in the car, in a hotel, or, once, in a trailer the same size as a can of sardines. She stays the night on only one occasion, and when she wakes up, she’s clinging to the unfortunate woman the same way children cling to their toys.

The rest of the time she spends skulking around the house. She keeps up, mostly, with the necessary work, handling the bodies and managing the accounts. She completes the latest tax return hungover, Hilda having given up and thrown it in her face the night before. The endless self-pity begins to drive her housemates batty. They’re used to Zelda traipsing in at strange hours in the morning, and so it’s not her newfound love for Riverdale that upsets them. It’s the constant goading, heckling, and all-round nastiness that Zelda is now emitting in perpetuum. It’s like living with an angry cobra.

The culmination of this comes one Friday morning, when Ambrose, up and about surprisingly early, overhears a particularly deadly spat she has with Hilda, and walks in right as Zelda’s about to slice her sister’s throat. He yanks the knife away from her (metaphysically that is – he dare not get _that_ close), and sits down at the breakfast table heavily. Hilda, now free to wrestle out of Zelda’s grasp, shuffles over to join him, still shaking.

They turn to Zelda, and Ambrose says:

“You need to get out of the house more.”

\---

She goes back to church a few weeks later. To her unending relief Diana isn’t there, and although Edward barely acknowledges his sister, he at least does not single her out. It’s much the same the following week, and the week after that. And so, with her best foot forward, Zelda creeps back into life. She doesn’t ‘get over it’, not in the traditional sense at least. Edward refuses to talk to her and the congregation treat her like a pariah, but after a month she’s drinking less, threatening Hilda only a moderate amount, and no longer stealing trysts from the Riverdale locals. Things almost go back to normal.

And then she finds out that Diana is pregnant.

She shouldn’t be surprised. It was the inevitable conclusion to all this, she reasons. But Edward announces it in church and it’s just like the engagement all over again. Smiling, doting, fawning; Zelda standing outside, smothering her pain with drink and tobacco. Hilda babbles on and on about it during the drive home and Zelda grows so angry she nearly runs them off the road. She won’t tell anyone this, not even Hilda, but she doesn’t want Edward’s child to exist – she knows it will not be loved as an equal, that it will be treated as an experiment. A human-witch hybrid. How could that be anything _but_ an experiment?

This child is part of the contract, Zelda thinks. This child is a witch that will distort Diana’s body and mind. This child is not what Diana really wants. But the truth is Zelda does not know what Diana wants – she only knows what Diana is trying to ignore. She does not understand that it’s possible to want a child without caring where it comes from. She’s too narcissistic to even consider it.

Hilda agrees to watch over the mortal.

No one asks Zelda if she wants to help and Zelda is relieved.

\---

The initial months of the pregnancy are a strange game of cat and mouse. Diana has, praise Satan, been bequeathed both a car and valid insurance, and so can finally ferry herself around. The downside to this is that she insists on coming to the Spellman Mortuary for her check-ups, and Zelda retreats into an unnervingly familiar Wednesday routine. Diana’s apt to call ‘sometime in the morning’ and so Zelda makes sure to be out the house by 10am, back by 4pm, at the latest. It works almost flawlessly, and the only slip-up occurs six months in.

The mortal arrives earlier than expected. Zelda, like the fool she is, answers the door, expecting a postman. Instead she sees the mortal, bump protruding from under her maternity wear, blinking in surprise.

“Oh,” says Diana, “Hello.”

She looks tired. Tired and smaller, despite the fact she’s technically getting bigger. Some of it’s from the pregnancy proper, Zelda knows this to be true, but... Not all of it. She can already feel the magic, faint though it is, bristling off Diana’s being. It shouldn’t be there – it’s a foreign substance that her body was not built to contain. Her blood cells are trying to fight an infection they will never be able to destroy. The child is magic; Diana is not, and it’s suffocating her from the inside out.

“Oh, Diana!” says Hilda, shoving Zelda aside in what is simultaneously a rescue and an affront, “Let’s get you inside.”

She ushers Diana into the house, and then turns as the mortal totters into the living room.

“I thought you were going out,” she hisses to Zelda.

Zelda reaches one hand to her chest, and her fingers curl around the fabric of her dress.

“I was just leaving,” she says.

Hilda shrugs and races after Diana, who Zelda knows is now sitting down because she can hear the creak of the springs in the settee.

She exhales heavily and leans against the shut door.

How she hates being caught off-guard.

\---

Hilda drives to Diana’s from then on.

The due date draws closer and closer, and they set up an extra table in the embalming room, decked out with soft white pillows and padded bedding. Any day now, Hilda keeps reminding them, any day. Ambrose and Zelda exchange weary looks over breakfast – all this baby talk has begun to make Hilda broody, and although Ambrose tolerates it far better than Zelda, they’re both reaching breaking point.

Diana, for better or worse, reaches breaking point two weeks before her in-laws, and that settles the matter. 

 

\---

The residents of Spellman mortuary are lurched awake at 5am, the doorbell ringing in their ears, Diana’s fists banging frantically on the door below. The contractions have started, the water is breaking, and the birth, whether they like it or not, has begun.

“Where the bloody hell is Edward!?” yells Hilda, arm around Diana’s shoulder.

She hauls Diana towards the basement and Ambrose rushes to help, and together they lug the mortal down the stairs. Diana mumbles a reply that Zelda doesn’t catch and Hilda turns red with fury. “That useless stinking idiot!” she embroils, and Zelda is impressed with the strength of her conviction. She’s clearly picked up a few tricks from her big sister over the years.

When it becomes clear Edward will not be around to help, the younger Spellman sister goes into overdrive. Hilda turns into her most obnoxiously motherly self, treating the now screaming Diana like a china doll, while Ambrose takes on all the fetch-and-carry duties a midwife could possibly need. Together, they assure Zelda, they have the situation under control. Zelda doesn’t believe them and busies herself with trying to contact Edward.

At first, she tries projection, a brief, barely-there foray into the ether. She dares not stay too long in case something goes wrong in the basement. Then she tries the phone. In hindsight she probably should have tried the phone first, but she’d hoped that natural Spellman magic would’ve tugged them together as easily as it used to. There’s a finite list of places Edward can be, she reasons, and she scrawls a quick list before tearing her way through the office to find the phone book.

Approximately forty minutes after Diana fell through their door, Ambrose bursts into the kitchen.

“It’s the mortal,” he says, panting from his sprint upstairs, “Hilda needs your help. Something’s wrong.”

Zelda hangs up on Faustus Blackwood and all but hurtles into the basement. To her relief, her overwhelming, embarrassing relief, there’s nothing, technically, going wrong. At least not yet. But there’s a lot of blood. More than there should be, and although Ambrose is doing his best, Hilda looks swamped. Zelda nods and takes command without another word.

The birth is long and painful; even with the two of them, even with the help of magic, and even with Ambrose running up and down the stairs carrying buckets of warm water, clean sheets, anything he can hold. Diana’s half delirious, and she grasps onto anything within reach. Once that’s Zelda’s dress, another time her hands. She crushes Zelda’s fingers with the strength of a titan.

When the babe’s finally out, when mother and child have been gently washed down and more-or-less dried, Hilda hands the child to Zelda, and Zelda hands the child to Diana. As she does so, her mind provides her with an image, so serene and picturesque, that she will remember it for the rest of her life. For, when she gently passes the child to its mother, there’s a moment she can almost convince herself the babe is hers, and that Edward has nothing to do with it at all. A beautiful baby girl, for her and Diana alone.

Zelda doesn’t remember that she’s meant to have shaken off her sentiments for the mortal, or that she fears for this child’s future as the first of its kind. She’s so desperate to live this fantasy that all the longing spills out regardless, and she forgets, for once in her life, the multitude of tragedies just waiting to fall.

The child’s an ugly little thing, slightly underweight and red with screeching rage, but Zelda strokes its velvety cheeks anyway. She’s always loved babies, always has and always will. They give her a purpose, a droplet of pure virtue in a world littered with injustice. And even though this one is not kind to its auntie, swings its fists angrily and howls with indignation at having been born, she allows herself to be enamoured with the child anyway. She wonders if Diana’s enamoured too. The mortal’s still trapped in that blank space of dizzying adrenaline and relief, and Zelda can practically feel the joy radiating off her.

She perches on the head of the table, just near the pillows, and strokes Diana’s hair carefully.

You did so well, she wants to say, you were so brave.

What she actually says, is: “Have you chosen a name?”

“Sabrina,” hums Diana, marvelling at the tiny fist now gripping her index finger.

“It’s beautiful.”

This perfect memory, this perfect false family, does not last long.

Hilda bumbles back into the room, and both Diana and Zelda look up in surprise, for neither even realised she’d left.

“Edward’s finally on his way,” Hilda says, only slightly breathless. “He’ll be fifteen minutes.”

Zelda opens her mouth, but Hilda interrupts.

“Don’t bother asking about projection, he… He said he couldn’t and he wouldn’t. Anyway, he’s coming now and that’s what counts.”

An angry crease runs across Diana’s forehead, shattering all elation. She begins to shuffle upright, shrugging off Zelda’s hand and clutching her child close.

“Hilda, I need…” She breaks off to catch her breath, then shuffles up some more. Zelda tries to help, but Diana doesn’t want her. Whatever spell she was under, whatever flush of hormones, is gone. She is closed off and hard. “Hilda,” she continues, “I need you to promise me something…”

Hilda trundles forward, not quite shoving Zelda, but most definitely nudging her out the way. Diana reaches up slightly, grasps the edge of Hilda’s hideous yellow cardigan between her thumb and forefinger. In doing so she pulls Hilda close, and Hilda bows her head, listening intently as Diana whispers in her ear. Zelda scoops up the blood sodden sheets at Diana’s feet and tramps upstairs. There’s no point staying where you’re not wanted.

She drops the sheets in a pile on the kitchen table.

For a time, she just stands there, staring at them. In the space of ten minutes she’s had both her sweetest memory and her most painful, and she’s not quite sure how to react. He doesn’t deserve this, she thinks bitterly. All this suffering just for him, and he wasn’t even there to see it. It’s not just for him, of course – it’s for the creation of new life, for the fulfilment of an oath, and above all the manifestation of Diana’s own wishes. But Zelda has always been a selfish creature, and she ignores these facts entirely.

“The mortal’s okay, then?”

She looks away from the table. Ambrose is hovering by the kitchen door, eyeing her carefully. Zelda sniffs slightly and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Yes,” she says, “Shaken and sore, but she’ll be alright. With time.”

“Good,” says Ambrose, nodding. Then, after a pause: “And you, Auntie?”

Zelda laughs falsely and dabs her eyes again.

“Oh, I’m quite alright. Simply… Marvelling in the joy of new life.”

She tries to smile, but Ambrose seems wholly unconvinced. She turns snippy just to defend herself.

“Go downstairs and help your Aunt Hilda,” she says tartly, “I’ve left her alone with Diana, and Satan knows what they’ll get up to without someone keeping watch.”

Ambrose frowns, then he does as he’s told nonetheless.

\---

Zelda hangs back when Edward and Diana finally leave.

The mortal’s limping. She shouldn’t be up and about so soon, anyone with functioning eyes could see that, but Edward wants to take her home, so home she is destined to go. Sabrina is quiet now, sleeping soundly amid soft white blankets, nestled close to her mother’s chest. Hilda helps Diana into the car, then stands with Edward chatting a short while. She hugs her older brother tight before letting him get into the driver’s seat.

Hilda waves them off – as does Zelda, though she’s waving from the porch rather than the drive – and waddles back to the house. Her face is flush warm with contentedness, a sentiment Zelda is longing to replicate.

“Well,” says Hilda, “That sure was something, wasn’t it?”

“A birth is a birth,” replies Zelda, far crasser than she intended.

She feels Hilda side-eyeing her and sighs.

“Yes,” she concedes, “It was something.”

The car disappears around the corner, but the dust is slow to settle.

“Thanks, by the way,” says Hilda, “With everything.”

Zelda wipes her eyes with her hand and brushes the tear away before it has a chance to form.

“Well,” she sniffs, “I couldn’t have you ruining things, could I?”

In another context this might earn her an eyeroll, but there’s no bite in her voice at all. Hilda’s gaze softens and the younger Spellman looks out onto the driveway once more.

“He’s asked us to be her Night Mothers.”

Zelda chokes.

“Why didn’t he say something?”

“He’s still not forgiven you,” sighs Hilda. “I don’t know what happened, and I don’t know what Diana told him. But… He’s not going to forgive you. He’s… He’s decided not to.”

“But I barely – “

“I know,” interrupts Hilda, “I know, Zelds.”

Zelda’s face contorts with rage.

This is the betrayal she was running from. The frosty distain, the drunken screeching, _this_ is what she was outrunning. Edward will never trust his favourite sister again. Edward will shield Diana from the ills of the world – from the ills of _his_ world – with a strong protective arm, batting away disdainful relatives and knocking would be rivals to the ground. Diana, in turn, will stand, proud and victorious, child in her arms, coveting Edward like a jewel. And all the while, Zelda will know, deep in her soul, that Diana does not, in the purest sense, truly love him. 

“Well,” she says, voice restrained only because Hilda does not deserve her furore, “If that’s how he feels, I don’t know why he even bothered asking.”

“He wants to get the formalities right,” says Hilda quietly. “A High Priest has to get the formalities right.”

Zelda sneers, contemplates refusing just to make Edward look bad.

But then something stops her; the most recent realisation in this intolerable learning curve.

Until now, Zelda had foolishly thought that everyone, when it came down to it, chose their heart over their head. Hilda always did, indulging in niceties and running after people that didn’t want her; Edward always did too, desperate to pursue priesthood even though their father hated him for it. And Ambrose, well, if he’d consulted his head, perhaps he wouldn’t be under house arrest.

But in a moment of startling clarity, she realises that heart over head is a Spellman trait, and not a universal one. Because Diana has ignored a crucial part of her heart entirely; Diana has been sensible to the letter. She has distanced herself from temptation, she has secured the safety of her child, and she has stayed with a man she does not love, because to leave him would result in a fate worse than death. Where Zelda’s response has been drenched in passion, Diana’s has been tempered with rationality. Well, she thinks, at least the mortal learnt something useful from those chess games.

“I despise her,” she says to Hilda. “I’ll despise her until the day I die.”

And, with that revelation, the dust finally settles.

The sisters stand there a time. In the interim, tiny flecks of rain begin to fall, splintering the soil.

“Will you be Sabrina’s Night Mother?” asks Hilda.

Zelda swallows.

“Yes,” she says.


	7. Chapter 7

Zelda doesn’t linger at the baptism. She stays only as long as she’s needed, and Hilda gives her the good grace to drive back on her own. The night is long and the sky overcast, and Zelda’s too tired to cry. Everything she predicted, every tiny detail of deception and hurt, has come to fruition. And now it’s been solidified in blood. Serves you right, she thinks, serves you right for believing in tenderness.

They see Edward off the following week. Blackwood, the temporary replacement from last year, is no longer to be temporary. He too, has been granted an upgrade, and will be leading communion as Bishop. Not quite High Priest, but Zelda’s had enough of those for now. Besides, she reasons, Faustus was almost useful when she was trying to track down Edward, so he can’t be _that_ bad.

The trip to the airport is laborious and not only because of the luggage slowing them down. Hilda’s determined to drive the bulk of the way, and, because there’s now a baby on board (as indicated by signage on the front and back of the vehicle), she takes the entire trip a solid fifteen miles slower than necessary. The other consequence of having small Sabrina in their car is that Zelda, on pain of death, has been forbidden from smoking, and is left with no crutch to lean on at all. She sits in the front seat, shades down, and pretends to sleep through the entire journey.

The airport is large enough to be confusing, but too small to be practical. The amenities are basic, the queues are long, and the staff are underpaid. It takes them an age to get the tickets, and by then there’s only twenty minutes left until the plane takes off. They still need to get through check-in, and the parting is rushed.

They say goodbye to Hilda first. It’s easier, warmer, and doesn’t require the social gymnastics of bidding farewell to Zelda. When Zelda goes to hug her brother, he tries to shake her hand; when Zelda goes to kiss Sabrina, Diana pulls the babe away. After that they abandon pleasantries.

“Goodbye,” says Diana.

“Goodbye,” says Zelda.

And the perfect nuclear family slips behind the barriers.

Zelda has never felt so numb in all her life.

“Shall we stay to see the plane take off?” asks Hilda.

Hilda’s looking at the ground, and fiddling with the zipper on her bag. She always fiddles with things when she’s nervous. Zelda sighs loudly.

“Would you like to watch the plane take off?”

“Only… Only if you want.”

Zelda does not want. There’s a feeling in her gut telling her to get the hell out of there, and it’s more than just heartbreak. But Hilda’s pouting slightly, and if Zelda said ‘no’ now she’d be as cruel as everyone seems to think she is.

Hilda waves as it ascends. 

Then they turn and trundle back to the car.

\---

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” says Hilda, “A really bad feeling.”

They’re almost home now and the road is practically empty. Zelda rolls her eyes and pushes on the accelerator just to get on Hilda’s nerves.

“I swear on Satan’s claw, Hilda, if you start telling me I need to slow down – “

“I don’t mean the car!”

Zelda’s so surprised she almost jumps.

She looks at her sister, as long as safety will allow, then honks loudly at a family of deer that have been too stupid to hear the engine. The animals scatter and ten seconds later the car speeds through the spot where the creatures once stood. Hilda’s eyes are downcast, playing with her sleeves.

“Something’s going to happen,” she says, “Something bad.”

“Don’t be preposterous,” says Zelda, “Everything’s… Perfectly fine.”

The road ahead of them seems eternal, going on and on into the horizon, unbroken and unmarked. Behind them the sun is setting, and the glare is so harsh Zelda can barely look in the rear-view mirror.

“It’ll be fine,” she continues, talking loudly even though Hilda can already hear her. “They’ll be back on the ground by midnight. It will all… Be fine.”

Hilda looks up at her uneasily. Perhaps releasing this nugget of information was a mistake – if Zelda really was sure, she wouldn’t have memorised their arrival time.

She slows the car and mutters a brief ‘Praise Satan’ when the turning finally comes into view. They slip smoothly off the highway and onto a dilapidated byroad. Zelda squints, then turns on the headlights. There are more potholes here than she remembers. More potholes, more weeds, and far less tarmac. There’s even the remains of a tree trunk, half rotten on the opposite side of the road. Was it like this when they drove out?

“I don’t know,” sighs Hilda, resting the weight of her head against the window. “I just…”

She sighs again and shuts her eyes. It can’t be comfortable, Zelda thinks, leaning against the car like that.

“Have you ever flown with a baby?” asks Hilda suddenly, and it’s so ridiculous Zelda gives a genuine snort of amusement.

“I’m sorry?”

“Before you ended up at the mortuary, I mean.”

“You know very well that I have no children.”

“No,” says Hilda, shrugging slightly, “But maybe someone else’s…”

“I’m not a kidnapper.”

“Maybe a friend’s?”

“No,” says Zelda, although there’s a faint smile on her lips now. “You’ve met my friends, Hilda. Most definitely not.”

“Mhm,” concedes Hilda, “I suppose so.”

She looks out the window.

“I don’t like the idea of flying with a baby.”

The car slows off the decaying tarmac and onto a bumpy gravel pathway.  

“Tell you the truth,” she continues, “I don’t like the idea of flying at all.”

Zelda nods slightly. She already knows this about her sister – Hilda took the journey from Plymouth to New York by boat some fifty years ago, and hasn’t left the continent since. She must have travelled before this, Zelda thinks, because Hilda’s command of Eastern European languages is far superior to her own. But then again, Europe is so much smaller than America.

She brings the car to a stop a few feet from the front garden.

“It has all been sanctioned,” she says, pulling the key out of the ignition. “They have the full weight of the church behind them, and there are a thousand witches blessing Edward a safe journey. Besides,” she says, undoing her seatbelt, “They’re more than capable of looking after themselves.”

She steps out the car and waits for Hilda to get out too.

They begin trudging slowly towards the house.

“Look,” whispers Hilda, “Ambrose’s light is out.”

Perhaps it’s an omen, thinks Zelda.

“He’s probably just gone to bed early,” she says.

They teeter up the porch steps, Zelda gripping the bannister hard.

“I’m gonna get some food,” announces Hilda, without turning around.

“Go,” says Zelda, “I need a smoke.”

Hilda nods and disappears into the house, leaving Zelda alone on the porch. The shadows are long, and although there’s barely a cloud in the sky, the atmosphere is far from dry. Droplets of moisture, furious at having been banished from the heavens, linger stubbornly in the air, slithering into any object they can find. The damp penetrates Zelda’s clothes almost immediately, and she can’t help but notice the clamminess.

Hilda was right, about the bad feeling. There’s something shifting in the bottom of Zelda’s immortal soul, something telling her that this will not end well. It was there at the airport and she ignored it when she should have been paying attention. She sucks on her cigarette for dear life, not caring where the ash falls.

She does not like this.

She does not like it one bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you've made it this far, hello, hi, how are you? this fic was a bit of a doozy for me, especially towards the end. that said, i do *really* love the pairing, so if anyone else is writing it um... hit me up. 
> 
> BUT ANYWAY. hope you enjoyed(?) this, and um, moral of the story is hilda's the mvp and that's the truth.


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